1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication system in which a communication device such as a facsimile machine and an external device that manages the facsimile machine are connected to each other via a computer network such as a Local Area Network (a “LAN”), and more particularly, to such a communication system in which replacement data sent from the external device is used to overwrite data already stored at the communication device. The present invention also relates to a communication method suited for such communication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, various LAN-capable communication systems have been developed. In one such system, a plurality of communication devices (facsimile machines) and an administrating computer are connected over a LAN.
The facsimile machines normally store speed-dial lists of telephone numbers or other data for quick dialing in order to improve the efficiency of the system during transmission. Conventionally, when the administration center (computer) that manages the facsimile machines needs to update the data in the quick dial lists or update other information such as the programming of the facsimile machines, it dials each facsimile machine one-by-one over the PSTN and over-writes the old data with replacement data.
There are several drawbacks to updating the data stored at the network facsimile machines using this conventional system. First, since the administrating computer overwrites the data at the network facsimile machines over the PSTN (“Publicly Switched Telephone Network”), a procedure for data overwriting may be time consuming and may increase communication costs. Further, if an error occurs during data transmission, the data overwriting procedure always fails. Still further, this process must be performed individually for each facsimile machine, thus increasing the total amount of time and communication cost required to overwrite data at a plurality of facsimile machines. It is thus desirable to find a more efficient way to update the data stored at the network communication devices of such a communication system.